Often, during the course of routine maintenance, gas meter exchanges—both standard and automated meter reading (AMR) meters—gas conversions, system upgrades, installation and testing of service pipes, and during emergencies, natural gas supplied to a commercial building or residence must be shut off. Once the work is performed, gas may be restored to the premises, or at a minimum, gas is restored between the service and the gas main. Prior to introducing gas to the end use equipment and/or in-house or service piping, an integrity test of the piping may be required.
Integrity tests help provide a level of confidence that the piping, fittings and couplings in the system are capable of maintaining the pressure that will be generated and sustained during normal gas usage, prior to re-energizing the pipe with gas. A large number of integrity tests are performed by utility companies and their contractors each day and are integral in ensuring that the safety of residences, businesses and technicians is maintained.
An integrity test helps to detect leaks and breaches in pipe, fittings, and connections to end use equipment, and helps to provide a level of confidence that the work performed on the piping was completed satisfactorily as to not allow a gas leak once reinstated. After updating, upgrading or repairing the gas piping, gas meter or end use equipment in a building, the following general procedure may be used to perform an integrity test.
A combination of devices and tubes, commonly known as a “Christmas Tree”, consisting of an aspirator ball on a valve, a tee, a manifold and a manometer, is connected to the service pipe before the meter set and air is pumped by hand into the piping to generate pressure of six to eight inches of water column inside the piping. Depending on the size of the building and the size of the piping, the time required to pump the service piping up to the required pressure by hand can be 30 minutes or more. The mechanic performing the integrity test watches the manometer for a predetermined time period. If the pressure remains constant throughout the test, the integrity of the piping and connections is confirmed. The mechanic fills out a report by hand that establishes pertinent information relative to the test that was performed (time, date, location, mechanic name, test results, etc.).
Because this process is performed by many different mechanics, it is difficult, if not impossible, to obtain consistent results or to ensure that the proper procedure is followed each time. Additionally, errors made during the report generation stage, due to illegible hand writing, misspellings, accidental typographical errors, etc., can cause the results provided to the gas distribution company to be flawed.
Therefore, a system and method for automating the integrity test process that can reduce the potential for human error would be beneficial because it would reduce risk, minimize the time required to perform testing, generate an accurate reporting trail and provide technicians a tool to use in their daily work.